Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/619

 in the bill admitting-California and establishing territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico.

"6. More effectual enactments of law to secure the prompt delivery of persons bound to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, who escape into another state; and,

"7. Abstaining from abolishing slavery; but, under a heavy penalty, prohibiting the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.

"If such of these several measures as require legislation should be carried out by suitable acts of congress, all controversies to which our late territorial acquisitions have given rise, and all existing questions connected with the institution of slavery, whether resulting from those acquisitions, or from its existence in the states and the District of Columbia, will be amicably settled and adjusted, in a manner, it is confidently believed, to give general satisfaction to an overwhelming majority of the people of the United States. Congress will have fulfilled its whole duty in regard to the vast country which, having been ceded by Mexico to the United States, has fallen under their dominion. It will have extended to it protection, provided for its several parts the inestimable blessing cf free and regular government, adapted to their various wants, and placed the whole under the banner and the flag of the United States. Meeting courageously its clear and entire duty, congress will escape the unmerited reproach of having, from considerations of doubtful policy, abandoned to an undeserved fate territories of boundless extent, with a sparse, incongruous, and alien, if not unfriendly population, speaking different languages, and accustomed to different laws, whilst that population is making irresistible appeals to the new sovereignty to which they have been transferred for protection, for government, for law, and for order.

"The committee have endeavored to present to the senate a comprehensive plan of [sic]addjustment, which, removing all causes of existing excitement and agitation, leaves none open to divide the country and disturb the general harmony. The nation has been greatly convulsed, not by measures of general policy, but by questions of a sectional character, and, therefore, more dangerous, and more to be deprecated. It wants repose. It loves and cherishes the Union. And it is most cheering and gratifying to witness the outbursts of deep and abiding attachment to it, which have been exhibited in all parts of it, amidst all the trials through which we have passed, and are passing. A people so patriotic as those of the United States, will rejoice in an accommodation of all troubles and difficulties by which the safety of the Union might have been brought into the least danger. And, under the blessing of that Providence who, amidst all vicissitudes, has never ceased to extend to them His protecting care, His smiles, His blessings, they will continue to advance in population, power, and prosperity, and work out triumphantly the glorious problem of man's capacity for self-government."

The debate on the principal bill reported, continued in the senate until July. The grouping of so many subjects in one bill gave it the name of "the omnibus." In its passage through the senate it had been trimmed down by